Slash brings the guitar-rock noise to Vancouver this summer

Fresh from performing at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony for his old band Guns N' Roses, top-hatted guitar hero Slash brings his arsenal of Les Pauls to Vancouver's Queen E. Theatre on Saturday (yes!), July 14.

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out at night

Aug 19, 2012 at 10:30am

Why is this article constantly popping up on the home page? No, I wasn't there, but the friend I gave my ticket to told me it was generic - what you'd call "able, proficient and uninspired" or "phoned in" My friend also told me it's just as well I missed out on the antics of a too-drunk, boorish crowd.

G 'n' R's "Spaghetti Incident" notwithstanding, Slash is as good a reason as any to re-invoke the contempt I developed for dinosaur rock way back in the late 70s when the punks were mounting their challenge to the old guard. Sure, I might have thrown out a few babies with that bathwater then (turns out Thin Lizzy and Led Zeppelin are pretty awesome after all!); but the fact is that glitzy, long-haired rock music founded upon the empty-headed values of hedonism, misogyny, material wealth and wankishly long guitar solos is, all these years later, still sucking.

out cold

out at night

Oct 6, 2012 at 1:25pm

@ out cold

Sure it might come across as a bit maudlin - so sorry!

But have you ever been cornered in the schoolyard by jocks and pushed around because you liked The Clash and Ramones and didn't care so much for the thousand or so bearded dude, business-class bands (Doobies, Supertramp, Bob Seger, Styx, Foreigner...) who ruled the airwaves in 1977-78? I have.

Those of us who were more than ready to throw off the wide-collared, flared trousered yoke of flatulent dino rock back in the day and embrace the minimalist, nearer the ground sounds of Iggy, Pistols and The Jam knew what we were doing and what it meant. And all kidding aside, we met with some pretty stiff opposition from those who had bought into the line about punk rock being the end of music and an evil to be stamped out. It really was like that, silly as it sounds.

Oh sure today we're all friends and everybody is proud to have music collections spanning disco, rockabilly, techno, metal and folk. But it was the punks who started all that experimentation and genre mashing in the first place. Joy Division became New Order who made disco cool again and led to Manchester techno while the Clash did reggae, dub and brought in rap, while world music came in through a thousand new wave bands and roots rock came back big with some kids from Athens and a whole continent of eager listeners ready for real rock and sick of progressive concept albums about spaceships. If punk rock had never happened the Alan Parsons Project would be an actual government department and that singer from Styx would be president!